LED Lights, Silent Shutter, Sensors, Banding, and Color Effects
Incandescent bulbs are being phased out in favor of LEDs. I am hoping to gather in this thread information about the extent to which people are having LED issues with their indoor photography and what they are doing about it.
LED bulbs have two problems as far as photography is concerned: Their flickering can cause banding on most camera sensors when they are used with silent shutter; and their color characteristics can produce very flat and inaccurate color images that can be quite difficult to correct because of the nature of the defect.
The banding problem either does not occur or is much reduced when using mechanical shutter. Electronic or silent shutter is very prone to the problem. Shutter speed is relevant variable--the faster, the worse. And different LEDs flicker at different rates, so the problem is worse with some bulbs than with others.
You can avoid the banding by using a stacked sensor, but this limits your choices in cameras. For Sony, the only stacked sensor mirrorless cameras are the A1 and the A9/A9II. The color distortion can be handled by installing LEDs with a CRI (color rendering index) of about 95 or above--but these bulbs are less common and more expensive. I've put them in my home and they do produce good light, but the flickering/banding remains a problem.
Some cameras have a variable shutter that can help to reduce the problem. But in all cases I have seen, the use of the variable shutter, even the automatic variable shutter, is kludgy and requires some attention while shooting. What are people experiencing with their variable shutters?
Within a year or two, most indoor lighting everywhere is likely to be LEDs. To what extent are people encountering photography problems with this?
Incandescent bulbs are being phased out in favor of LEDs. I am hoping to gather in this thread information about the extent to which people are having LED issues with their indoor photography and what they are doing about it.
LED bulbs have two problems as far as photography is concerned: Their flickering can cause banding on most camera sensors; and their color characteristics can produce very flat and inaccurate color images that can be quite difficult to correct because of the nature of the defect.
You can avoid the banding by using a stacked sensor, but this limits your choices in cameras. For Sony, the only stacked sensor mirrorless cameras are the A1 and the A9/A9II. The color distortion can be handled by installing LEDs with a CRI (color rendering index) of about 95 or above--but these bulbs are less common and more expensive. I've put them in my home and they do produce good light, but the flickering/banding remains a problem.
Some cameras have a variable shutter that can help to reduce the problem. But in all cases I have seen, the use of the variable shutter, even the automatic variable shutter, is kludgy and requires some attention while shooting. What are people experiencing with their variable shutters?
Within a year or two, most indoor lighting everywhere is likely to be LEDs. To what extent are people encountering photography problems with this?
Aug 07, 2023 at 11:12 AM
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